Cover Story: Driving ambition

According to a report from Global Industry Analysts, the worldwide market for intelligent transport systems (ITS) is projected to reach $18.5billion by 2015. This anticipated growth is based on rising global traffic congestion caused by increased motorisation and shifts in population density. Congestion also reduces the efficiency of transportation infrastructure and increases travel time, air pollution and fuel consumption. There is a palpable need for ITS. Accidents can be reduced by communicating information to drivers about dangerous conditions, or by communicating directly with vehicles to provide safety related services. Intelligent transport systems vary, from satellite navigation systems, automatic number plate recognition (anpr) or speed cameras to applications that integrate live data and feedback from a number of sources, such as parking guidance and information systems. Predictive ITS technology also allows advanced modelling and comparison with historical baseline data. ITS uses uhf and vhf frequencies for both short and long range communications. Short range communications – less than 500 yards – can be accomplished using IEEE 802.11 protocols, specifically wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE). Longer range communications are a little trickier. While it is possible to use infrastructure networks such as WiMAX, GSM or 3G, extensive infrastructure deployment is required. Steve Wainwright, Freescale's general manager, EMEA Region and vice president, sales and marketing, believes future growth depends heavily on the interoperability of ITS systems. "As these platforms become more advanced, automobiles with limited capability must be able to coexist with them. Telematics solutions must be made available on all wireless platforms, so that all generations of car equipment are able to use them, regardless of their capability or bandwidth." According to ABI Research, the global number of consumer telematics users will grow from 37million in 2010 to more than 211m in 2015. "In just the same way as you need to make sure you can read Word 95 in the latest Windows version," observed Wainwright, "solutions must be developed that ensure advanced and less advanced vehicles can coexist." Wainwright believes Europe is in a strong position to be able to lead the development of standards for ITS. "Europe has large high technology tier 1s and OEMs, as well as the other parties needed to make this happen – the network operators and the communications equipment manufacturers," he asserted. "Furthermore, the region already has active organisations and consortia focused on ITS in many countries including the UK, for example car2car.org and the ITS UK Association. "All the ingredients are in place to make this a major opportunity for companies operating in Europe to pioneer initiatives in traffic information, navigation, parking, communications, reservation, toll and others," Wainwright observed. However, CSR's head of connectivity marketing for automotive, Thomas Carmody, argues there are lengthy and costly processes to address before this becomes a reality. "In terms of traffic management, the UK has very little focus at the moment. But there are plans to roll out 802.11p – a sub section of the IEEE Wi-Fi Standard for intelligent transport systems." This specification will enable WAVE and support ITS applications such as data exchange between high speed vehicles and between vehicles and roadside infrastructure within a licensed ITS band of 5.9GHz. CSR has earmarked this kind of intelligent traffic monitoring and prevention of vehicle to vehicle collisions. However, Carmody cautions that the level of standardisation required means it's unlikely that it will be implemented before 2014 at the earliest. "The US and Europe seem to be on the same page in terms of standards, the frequencies and the radio frequency driven dipolar recoupling (rfdr)," he noted. In theory, the market will be lucrative as every car on the road will have 802.11p chips in them. "And, of course, the infrastructure on the highways would also have the same technology to enable an intelligent traffic system," Carmody added. Dr Liz Orme, director of transport at Cambridge Consultants, suggests that, until standardisation is implemented, there may be reluctance for companies to commit to ITS. "At present, there's not an appetite, and I can't see it changing for at least a couple of years," she observed. "There will be a large number of vehicles to get this kind of technology to the UK and it's not obvious that the infrastructure would be in place to support it in vehicles. The three basic technology areas that could address this are gps, gprs and floating cellular data." One of the advantages of a GPS device that uses a vehicle's data systems is that it eliminates the need for relatively expensive sensors, instead using data readily available in the vehicle. Floating cellular data determines traffic speed on a road network and is based on the collection of localisation data, speed, direction of travel and time information from mobile phones in vehicles. Effectively, every vehicle with an active mobile phone on board acts as a sensor for the road network. However, as Dr Orme cautioned: "You need hundreds, if not thousands, of people making journeys to hold up a historic database and to make valid predictions." Dr Orme says that, while companies such as Nokia, Vodafone and Telefonika are focusing on floating cellular data, UK organisations are a little further behind. "In Spain, there are already trials on cellular data systems – and it's commercially available in Belgium. There are even roll outs planned in Australia." And in Holland, VID, which provides national traffic information, has implemented Sony's smart cameras with anpr capability for use on Dutch roads. The systems run video analysis software from software development company Abstract Computing International, with one scheme advising motorists on travelling times. A camera is placed at an intersection between two routes, with separate cameras positioned further down both routes, performing identical tasks. A central server then registers a match and calculates the travel times. The information then flashes up on a road sign to advise drivers on the quicker route. Chief operating officer at Abstract Allard Blom said: "Video analysis is highly dependent on the picture it gets to analyse, so we need good cameras and good knowledge of the lighting conditions." A smart camera is typically a camera and a computer combined in one. "You can install software on a smart camera and advice can be given to motorists on which route to take." Stephane Clauss, technical support engineer at Sony added: "Our concept is quite simple, because most other systems currently use a camera connected to a pc for image processing. The idea was to put everything in one box and, as it runs on a standard operating system (Windows XP), it has good interoperability. You can run any kind of software and adapt it – and it enables the interdeployment of a number of different devices connected to the smart camera." Clauss adds the system targets any ITS application that needs to put an image processing algorithm as close as possible to the road. "As soon as you need to trigger an image, the sensors can detect the presence of a car. This kind of functionality is not available in standard cctv systems. You can directly wire such a signal to the camera and instantly grab a new image." Sony's cameras are also used in areas where it is necessary to restrict queue hopping. Cameras are set up at two points and the number plate is read at each. If the time interval is too short between entering and exiting, a red light forces the driver to wait. Another application ensures high sided vehicles leave the road when approaching a low bridge. Sony's cameras measure the height of trucks using a laser based system and flash up a warning on a road sign informing the driver to take the next exit. A second camera is then positioned on the exit ramp to recognise if the lorry leaves the road. If the driver ignores the sign, traffic lights are activated and the traffic is stopped. According to Blom, the Dutch government has run a number of projects to gather information on where traffic is going, how fast it is moving, how best to build new roads and how best to use existing ones efficiently. But this has brought with it the issue of drivers' privacy. "Many methods were processor intensive and required cost intensive technology," stated Blom. "In The Netherlands, there was one project in which a 'black box' was installed in cars for electronic toll collection. But this also revealed how fast the car was going and how fast the brakes were being applied. "The benefit of anpr over the black box system is that you can measure a vehicle at a certain point, then measure it again at another point. ANPR delivers data on travelling times but does not identify the vehicle itself, so you can count a lorry or a car, but you don't necessarily know where it's going." ANPR uses optical character recognition (ocr) on images to read the licence plates on vehicles. The system can be used to store images captured by cameras as well as text from licence plates. Systems commonly use infrared lighting to allow the camera to take the picture at any time of the day. However, with some configurability, it is possible to store a photograph of the driver and this has raised additional concerns about privacy, misidentification and high error rates. The system uses a series of image manipulation techniques to detect, normalise and enhance the image of a number plate and then ocr to extract the alphanumerics of the license plate. ANPR systems are generally deployed either to allow for the entire process to be performed at the lane location in real time, or to transmit all the images from many lanes to a remote computer location and to perform ocr at a later point. When installed at a lane site, it takes around 250ms to capture all the information, which is converted into small data packets. It can then be transmitted remotely for further processing if necessary, or stored at the lane for later retrieval. According to Wainwright, vehicle telematics of the future should be integrated, yet flexible. And research undertaken by Freescale shows the market for ITS is about to experience significant growth. Wainwright concluded: "Industry stakeholders must open out discussion, collaborate and innovate together to create an integrated infrastructure for the future."